Jon Stewart’s leadership is tested as he and a small crew of Green Lanterns face an enemy that wants to obliterate them. “Green Lantern: The Lost Army” #1 is a decent enough jumping on point for new readers. Read on for review but be warned, there are some spoilers.
Written by Cullen Bunn
Illustrated by Jesus Saiz
Imagine waking up in a strange place where you didn’t recognize anything, and everyone you knew and loved was nowhere to be found. Now imagine that you are a Green Lantern. The rest of the Corps is missing, you don’t know where you are and there’s not a Power Battery to be found for as far as your ring can scan. Where are you? How did you get here? Those are just two of the many questions facing our heroes.Starring John Stewart, Two-Six, Kilowog and Arisia, and featuring a surprise guest-star we promise you’ll never predict, LOST ARMY is an incredible journey of discovery, survival, morality and heartbreak. Never has the Corps been challenged in this way – and not everyone is going to make it home!
First I think it’s important to note that I don’t have a ton of experience with recent events in the Green Lantern universe. I’ve always been on and off with these books and I haven’t read a major crossover since “Blackest Night”. In general, I’ve always paid more attention to the periphery books because they’re almost always self contained stories with under utilized characters. I come into “Green Lantern: The Lost Army” #1 as the kind of reader DCYou is supposed to attract. I’m a lapsed reader looking for a jumping on point back into the Green Lantern universe. For the most part, this is a good place to get back in and the issue sets up a potentially huge storyline.
“Green Lantern: The Lost Army” #1 opens with John Stewart, Arisia, Two-Six, Kilowog and Xrill-Vrek fighting against alien monsters that want to destroy them. Most of this issue is this extended fight scene but part way through John reflects on his military background. He flashes back to a military campaign he was a part of and uses what he learned there for this situation. Krona, who’s also a part of this book, is not fully trusted (with good reason) but he does do enough to help them discover that Guy Gardner is on this planet too but with a surprise.
As a debut issue, “Green Lantern: The Lost Army” #1 could do worse. It’s accessible enough by offering a story of Green Lanterns stuck on an unknown planet, facing an enemy they might not be able to overcome. It features a big name character in John Stewart and even casual fans can recognize Kilowog. Writer Cullen Bunn sets up the story fairly well but, like last week’s “Doctor Fate,” the free 8 page sneak peek feels kind of necessary to the story. That gave us a little more information about these creatures they’re facing and Krona’s appearance feels much less sudden. Bunn does a nice job establishing John’s voice early on, and he’s able to make this feel like an introduction to the character without bogging the issue down with too much unnecessary exposition or narration. Since he’s the star of the series, it’s important for readers to connect with him so this is a necessary action to take with the script. Krona is a character whose history I don’t fully know and I would have liked a little something more than what we got. I wasn’t convinced this character was as major a problem as he is supposed to be. Bunn assumes a little too much of the reader and I did have to head over to Wikipedia for a little background. This could have been easily solved by a brief recap page before the story started. I love a good recap page and since this initiative is not a reboot, it would have been a good idea to briefly catch us up with what’s gone on recently with the Green Lanterns.
“Red Lanterns” is no longer a series DC is publishing, so it was nice to see Guy Gardner (my favorite Green Lantern) featured in this issue. Right off the bat, Bunn establishes his personality well but I do hope that there doesn’t end up being a fight for the spotlight. This is a big cast that features some newer characters who should (hopefully) get some exposure but with John, Guy and Kilowog featured, I worry that they may end up under developed. Taking them away from the main action happening in “Green Lantern” is a smart move and I hope that this book can remain it’s own thing for a little while so that much of this raw material can be shaped and molded.
Continued belowJesus Saiz is hands down the star of this issue. His art is beautiful but with a few minor issues. The character designs are really gorgeous; the Green Lantern costumes are sleek and with Saiz’s coloring style, they appear as real leather like fabric. Characters like Krona, Kilowog and Two-Six are drawn fabulously with their alien features not being something Saiz shies away from. The creatures the team fights are fully reliant on the coloring work and Saiz is up to the task. The different shades of oranges add depth to the creatures and despite not having a conventional shape, he’s still able to convey a sense of danger about them. The light of the Lanterns rings really shines and has an actual sense of light to them and the shades vary thanks to some layering. This is obviously important to a Green Lantern starring series because the last thing you want to see is a blocky and uninspired mess of green across the page. The panel layout is very good because Saiz is able to do a bunch of different things, but there’s a big lack of epic feeling splash pages. The fun of a book like this should be the grandiose space scenes and aside from one brief moment, you don’t really get that. The backgrounds are a little lacking as well as there isn’t a lot of depth in Saiz’ version of outer space.
“Green Lantern: The Lost Army” #1 is an okay debut that acts as a fine gateway into this part of the DC Universe. It does leave something to be desired but there are glimpses of something greater coming down the road.
Final Verdict: 7.0 – A nice introduction with strong art but is overall lacking some punch.
